One cannot help but feel and experience a fascination with the world around us, the environment in which we live, the earth upon which we walk, ride and drive, the sky and surrounding atmosphere in which we and other creatures fly, and the surrounding cascade of moon, stars and planets under which all human beings, and in fact all creatures of this earth, live and die. In spite of our preoccupation with the thoughts, dreams, worries, anxieties and comparisons which our emotional and mental faculties present to us, or what we might say put us through, the world around us, our environment, serves as the great equalizer, a surrounding physical reality that is the same for everyone, rich or poor, learned or uneducated, old, middle aged, young, active or idle, including all ethnic groups and nationalities, people with differing opinions, points of view, agendas, life goals and ambitions. Our senses put us in direct contact with this world and it cannot but help shape and mold the ways in which each of us experience life.

Although our differing geographical locations, points of view, cultures and individual senses provide us with the perception of our individuality and uniqueness, the fact remains there is no other alternative for any of us to experience life as it is presented to us by our environment and by the world around us. We must all find our way in this same world and it is this direct experiencing of our world and the challenges this presents that we all share. Sunrises, sunsets, the nocturnal changes of the moon, the pounding of the waves on the shore, the feel of a breeze across our faces, the glare of the sun in our eyes, the alternating periods of sound and silence in our daily lives, these represent ultimately what could be a near to endless listing of the common experiences to which we are all exposed, which we all share, and which shape and define the experience of all living entities.

Yet, in spite of all of these common and shared experiences, we also live in a world that demonstrates ongoing conflict, an almost never-ending obsession with differentiation of cultures, religions, political systems and individuals. Though we all share this world, this solar system, and this universe equally, we somehow believe that what one person experiences can be and is vastly different from what others experience. This need and desire to differentiate is both an epistemological and a cultural phenomenon; epistemological in the sense that differentiation seems essential in regards to the way our minds process information, and cultural, in the ways in which we separate one nationality and ethnic group from another, one country from another, one religion from another, one neighborhood from another, one team affiliation from another, one family from another. Though we all live in the same world, and are subject to the same laws of nature and physics, we continue to differentiate ourselves from others in far-reaching ways.

If we view the world around us in Darwinian terms, the world is a vast arena in which all life forms compete for survival. If the history of life on this planet is in fact dominated primarily, if not solely, by the struggle for survival, then it would make perfect sense that the ability to differentiate would be a key skill for survival, one that would be passed along and strengthened from surviving generation to surviving generation. This would include the ability to distinguish between friends and enemies, safety and danger, the ability to see forms in a camouflaged background, to successfully find food and kill prey, to form alliances which increase the chances for survival. All of these skills contribute to the survival of both an individual entity and, in the aggregate, the survival of a species. If we are struggling for survival with other species, as well as individual entities within our own species, it makes perfect sense that the survivors would be those that are most successful in differentiating those factors which ensure survivability, while those with poor differentiating skills would be the first to fall. Those who differentiate are rewarded, those who do not are punished, ultimately with both death and extinction.

The struggle for survival in its most basic sense, in the natural habitats where species originated and competed, and where one either lived to propagate the species or died, is now poured into such a complex vessel – that of contemporary society – that it is near to impossible to determine which skill sets are rewarded, in support of longevity and survival, and which are being punished, in terms of early death and lack of progeny. Do individual lifestyles and individual choices really, in the aggregate, determine the survivability or lack of survivability of our species? Does this represent a hidden but controlling force in our lives that ultimately dictates how we interact with the world around us? Have we been programmed by survival instincts to compete and differentiate, rather than to seek commonality within our world and with our fellow humans? And, if we can in fact be controlled by such hidden forces, what are the chances really that rational thought can in fact reveal anything meaningful about ourselves and how we interact with the world around us?

This brings us to an odd, almost absurd or even comical philosophical question – are we or are we not animals? The self-evident answer would be that, yes of course, as we are descended from apes, who most certainly are animals, this clearly makes us animals as well. However, due to our intellect, or the workings of our oversized brains, we apparently have the capacity to deny our own animal nature and origins and to posit ourselves as human beings, with the ability to think, conceptualize, create and imagine that we are really not animals, but are in fact directly descended from or created by gods or some higher form of being.